The Insider is a political and business bulletin about Zimbabwe, edited by Charles Rukuni. Founded in 1990, it was a printed 12-page subscription only newsletter until 2003 when Zimbabwe's hyper-inflation made it impossible to continue printing.

Published

Zimbabwe bond notes – a big lie and a fraud!

I was of convinced that Mangudya’s stories were not his, and that there was more to the bond notes story than his explanations that Afreximbank was backing the bond notes issue with a $200million loan.

As a result, for months, I sought to prove my hypothesis.

And then, one day, I did.

I have an acquaintance who works for Afreximbank in Cairo (name withheld at his request).

He isn’t just anybody, but a top honcho at the institution.

For a while, he dithered around over the issue, till one day a few weeks ago.

It’s all a lie, he told me. In short, the whole bond notes issue is a scam.

If the RBZ transferred large amounts of value from citizens to its kleptocratic principals over many years during Gono’s era, this time, it has managed to drain massive amounts of value from the people to its principals in a short space of time.

In short, between November 2016 when the bond notes came into the market and now (a period of less than a year), the level at which wealth has been sucked from the people and companies is staggering.

Yet the scams didn’t even start with bond notes.

The grand scheme actually started the moment ZANU-PF took sole control of government.

Back then, Chinamasa started creating a digital version of bond notes through the RTGS system, issuing treasury bills and sucking out value from the system to fund government activity.

This was followed by an order by the RBZ where it transferred control of balances held by local banks in correspondent banks offshore to itself.

While overall market liquidity had always been tight for a long time, these moves by Chinamasa and Mangudya drained the market of real US dollars, triggering a cash crisis.

And the bond notes became their last-ditch attempt to not only cover their tracks, but also complete a massive transfer of wealth from the people to the elites.

While the people suspected that they were being shepherded into a giant con, they were not forceful enough to stop it.

Activists, especially Evan Mawarire and his “This Flag” movement got an audience with Mangudya who gave them nothing but his word.

The Insider is a political and business bulletin about Zimbabwe, edited by Charles Rukuni. Founded in 1990, it was a printed 12-page subscription only newsletter until 2003 when Zimbabwe's hyper-inflation made it impossible to continue printing.